Tuesday, 27 December 2016

Caerphilly Council pay scandal to cost £2 .5 Million

The Wasting Mule report that the cost of a senior officers' pay scandal at a Welsh council will rise above £2.5m in March 2017, surely calls for the Welsh Assembly to intervene ?

Anthony O’Sullivan, the chief executive of Caerphilly council , was suspended from his post in March 2013 when a police investigation got underway into huge secret pay rises awarded to Mr O’Sullivan and 20 other senior officers at the authority.

Later in 2013, the council’s deputy chief executive Nigel Barnett and its head of legal services Daniel Perkins were also suspended.

The Assistant Auditor General for Wales, Anthony Barrett, stated in a public interest report that Mr O’Sullivan had acted unlawfully by writing a council report that recommended his own salary should rise from £132,000 to £158,000.

The Wales Audit Office published a report by Assistant Auditor General Anthony Barrett in which he concluded that Mr O’Sullivan had acted unlawfully by writing a report that recommended massive increases for himself and senior colleagues, and by being present at a committee meeting when the rises were approved.

Mr Barrett also said the meeting itself was unlawfully held because it was not advertised in accordance with legal requirements.

But although Mr O’Sullivan, Mr Barnett and Mr Perkins were charged with misconduct in a public office, but a judge later dismissed the case on lack of evidence

Judge Hart said there was no direct evidence that Mr O’Sullivan or Mr Barnett had been involved in failing to publish the agenda.

Mr Perkins, however, was – and the evidence against him in this respect was “material and potentially incriminating”.

On the issue of whether Mr O’Sullivan and Mr Barnett were complicit in any decision not to publish the agenda, the judge posed a question: “[Could] a jury properly infer that this could not sensibly have been a frolic of DP’s own given the matrix of the relationship between the parties and the impact of the generality of the evidence or would such a conclusion as against AO and NB be speculative?”

Judge Hart answered his own question: “In my judgement, there is no evidential basis for a conclusion against AO and NB. before it went to trial.

The three men have not returned to work and a disciplinary investigation is continuing. Solicitors acting for a council chief executive embroiled in the long-running scandal over senior officer pay rises have revealed that his three-year suspension was secretly lifted in March this year.

It appears the majority of Caerphily Councillors are as in the dark as teir electorate

As Caerphilly face making cuts the £2.5 million that has cost would have elevated much of them.

This sorry saga looks set to continue after May's election maybe we will see what those standing intend to do about it.

Or is there no solutions to paying a huge payoff to these three men who may have not been prosecuted let their fellow employees who were already on low wages as they first made sure themselves were first with their noses in the trough..